From the “if it ain’t broke” files: Google Squared

Met with much head scratching, search engine king Google released a new and perplexing search tool today called Google Squared.

Designed- sort of, I suppose- to cut down on users having to perform multiple searches of different type (news, image, web)- Google Squared returns search results in a spreadsheet-like form that leans more toward dada than dynamic content.

Creative soul that I am, I looked about for something common to search and get an idea for how results were returned. I tried coffee (first thing in my line of sight) and received a bunch of random results that didn’t really seem to serve any conceivable quest for coffee knowledge. Undaunted (and still apparently low on ideas), my eyes traveled to my browser window. Inquisitr, I figured, might return something more judgeable… Alas, no, just a random collection of articles from the site and no information that would be of any use to me if I hadn’t already visited the site.

“Aha!” thought I, cleverly adding my own (somewhat uncommon) name to the search query box. Surely being clearly a person’s name, with a date of birth and location attached, it would return some worthwhile results. Not the case- amid random license numbers (not attached to my name and with no clear connection to my search) were a few entries on “Computer Literacy,” “Consumer Science,” and a random picture of the food pyramid.

Are you trying to tell me something, Google? At once I felt fat, stupid, unlicensed and wholly irrelevant.

Reaction to the new Google product seems to be a chorus of “meh.” To save you the clicks, I performed a sample search on “your mother.”

Ha, ha! Okay, on to the results:

As you can see, results contained several references to How I Met Your Mother, the reality guilt-cruise Intervention (illustrated with a cute but ostensibly not-related web comic) and references to a sex act involving Maple Syrup. (Is your mom Canadian?)

The real downside to this initiative, I suspect, is the relative ubiquity of Google already. Power users have tweaked and shortcutted their way to a real Google dependence (google-fu even shows up on resumes) and won’t want to learn a new system even if it is really funny when you’re high. Less web-savvy users like your parents and the dude you share a cubicle with already use their AOL mail for everything. So Google Squared might have a hard time catching on with either segment.

But Google is quick to point out that Squared still needs a lot of tweaking- it may prove relevant. Continued usage may make the content less ethereal, but for now, it’s a little like a Google-based Magic 8 Ball. Amusing, but not really real-life useful.